Defining Her Own Sphere of Influence

"She's a superfecta: a Republican, a woman, an African American and secretary of state," he said. "I don't think there's a hotter star on the Republican political horizon than Condi Rice."

McKinnon said he believes that Rice "will not be a candidate for president in 2008, but that she absolutely will be on the short list for vice president. Especially if Hillary [Rodham Clinton] is the [Democratic] nominee, but I think in any case."

Rice's high public standing in the face of the administration's problems has been a source of pride for her staff, but officials declined to cooperate in the preparation of this article. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack would not comment.

As national security adviser, Rice appeared frequently on television as an occasionally stiff defender of the president's policies. But she appeared to achieve stardom early in her tenure as secretary of state when, a month after taking the post, she was photographed walking past hundreds of cheering soldiers in Germany wearing a black skirt, a black coat and knee-high black boots that evoked the movie "The Matrix." Rice routinely wears expensive and flashy designer outfits in her travels.

Rice is especially effective in town-hall-style meetings in which she engages in extended give-and-take with the audience. She still delivers many of her speeches in the pedantic style of a former university professor, but her staff has learned to keep the speeches relatively short (about 20 minutes) so she can then take questions for 40 minutes.

Overseas, Rice uses her personal story of growing up in the segregated South to demonstrate humility about the American experience. She will frequently note that "my ancestors in Mr. Jefferson's Constitution were three-fifths of a man." In Sydney earlier this year, there was an audible gasp from the nearly all-white crowd when she said she did not have a white classmate until she moved to Denver in 10th grade.

Rice combines her personal touch with an unusually close relationship with the president. She was extraordinarily close to Bush as national security adviser and still speaks to him at least once a day, if not more.

Rice's predecessor, Colin L. Powell, was personally popular from his previous role as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but he did not have a close partnership with Bush, and as secretary he did not have a feel for visual flair.

Rice has traveled about 490,000 miles in the 17 months since becoming secretary -- it took Powell twice as long to compile such mileage -- including a 31,000-mile slog through Latin America and Asia that appears to be the longest single trip ever made by a secretary of state.

But Rice has combined the travel with an unusual attention to visual detail, intended to show viewers at home that she is working and those overseas that she cares about their cultural traditions.

To highlight a new effort to reach out to Europe after the tensions of the Iraq invasion, Rice combined a groundbreaking speech in Paris -- at the alma mater of French President Jacques Chirac -- with a visit to the Hector Berlioz Conservatory. The local news media avidly covered her as she watched children perform. A trip to India included a stop at a cultural icon, Humayun's Tomb in New Delhi, which resulted in coverage across South Asia and large photo displays in U.S. newspapers.

Rice's trips have included photos of her watching potential Chinese Olympians ice skating in Beijing, visiting a top-secret facility carved into a mountain near Seoul that would direct a war with North Korea and awarding the medals for the women's breaststroke competition (an Australian specialty) during the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Australia.

"The day-to-day of diplomacy is not important to people," said James B. Steinberg, dean of the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas and a State Department and White House official in the Clinton administration. But such images are effective because ordinary Americans "find it appealing. They can relate to it more than pictures of people in suits going to meetings."

Rice has added an unusual innovation, at the urging of former senior adviser Jim Wilkinson: cultural airport greeters. Instead of being met by protocol chiefs or foreign ministers, Rice's office has requested that the secretary be met by a country's pop culture heroes, especially sports or music stars, guaranteeing extensive coverage by the local media. Because Rice tends to arrive at night, this also ensures that she is already on the front page of the morning newspapers when she arrives for meetings with top officials.

In Tokyo, Rice was met at the airport by Konishiki, a sumo champion. A photo of the 600-pound wrestler hugging the much smaller Rice even appeared on the front page of the Financial Times.

In Romania, she was met by Olympic legend Nadia Comaneci, young Romanian Olympic gymnasts and Special Olympians. And in Belgium, the media widely covered her meeting with cyclist Eddy Merckx, who won the Tour de France five times.

She has also met with musical heroes, such as in Seoul, when she was greeted by both a matronly singer of traditional Korean music and a young pop star in baggy, ripped jeans.

Staff writer Dan Balz and assistant director of polling Claudia Deane contributed to this report.